Posted on 02/20/2014 9:02:11 AM PST by SkyPilot
Barbie gets a lot of heat nowadays. People shout at her for her figure. They complain about her plastic perfectness and general lack of realism. But they forget just how pivotal Barbie has been in helping challenge barriers in society. For example, the first African American President Barbie was released in 1992 - 16 years before Barack Obama took office.
In 1992 Barbie released the Barbie for President African American doll. It took the United States another 16 years to elect one... a male one. Yay, Barbie, setting out good messages everywhere!
In 1988 Dr. Mae Jemison completed astronaut training, as the first female African American astronaut for NASA. But Barbie was three years ahead of her with their African American Barbie doll astronaut...and then they released another doll in 1994. Each astronaut helmet had a white helmet and included an American flag. Because the All American Doll is any color.
Black women have a troubled relationship with hair, and though the natural hair movement and “natural Barbie dolls” today are going someway to help, it’s still not perfect. Barbie didn’t get it quite right when she debuted the Super Hair African American Barbie doll in 1986 as the hair texture was pretty standard, but the fact that Mattel accepted that women of color might need to have different styling choices and styles was HUGE for the time. The doll came with barrettes to put hair in twists and rolls, and while the hair looks like standard doll hair, we give props to Mattel for recognizing the diverse audience.
(Excerpt) Read more at fusion.net ...
I sense that she is trying to say, “Barbie for President!”
The diversity cheerleader that wrote this article neglected one important statistic: How did these dolls sell?
Ha...I have no data point on that except to say that my daughter when she was younger never wanted one.
I remember buying a full set of dolls for one of my grand daughters like this (7 or 8 of them) that included a black doll, but she never played with it from what my daughter tells me....I guess she’s racist....:o)
Do they all have Obamaphones they can use to video their mob of boyfriends beatin up on crackas?
I remember SNL’s Tupac Barbie...came with a baby stroller, a forty, some Newports, and a restraining order for baby-daddy
When we first got married, my lovely wife worked at a Toys R Us during the height of the Cabbage Patch craze. A couple of Clarkstown, NY finest had to patrol the parking lot during that time to control the lunacy over these dolls. And when they released the first Black Cabbage Patch dolls, things really went nuts over their. And it was WHITE people who fought each other over them. The Blacks thought it was hilarious.
Where’s the Queen Latifah model?
The diversity cheerleader that wrote this article neglected one important statistic: How did these dolls sell?
What no picture of “O”?
Black Barbie Dolls Coming Next:
“Welfare Baba’kwasheniqua” and “Knockout Kenyatta’vontay”
LOL at the “inaugural” (black widow) dress.
What, no afro?
What “barriers”? Did anyone in the industry ever use the phrase, “No, you can’t make a doll who’s black”?
There’s just no pleasing some people.
They tried making the Moochelle Obama but they ran out of plastic halfway down.
One Barbie doll that didn’t sell too well was Divorce Barbie, it came with all of Ken’s things.
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